Thursday 20 September 2012

SAIL to spend Rs 45,000 crore on capacity expansion in 12th Five-Year Plan

19 SEP, 2012, PTI
NEW DELHI: State-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) will spend a whopping Rs 45,000 crore during the 12th Plan ending March, 2017 on capacity addition, up from Rs 40,312 crore during the 11th Five-Year Plan.

"SAIL has pegged outlay on modernisation and expansions during the 12th Five-Year Plan at Rs 45,000 crore, including Rs 14,500 crore during the current year," the largest public sector steel maker said in its latest annual report.

SAIL, which recorded over Rs 50,000 crore turnover during 2011-12, spent Rs 40,321 crore on modernisation and expansion during the 11th Plan Period, including Rs 11,000 crore in the last fiscal.

"Steel industry requires continuous capital investments for technological up-gradation and addition, modification of its capital assets which are essential to maintain the market competitiveness and meet the challenging needs of customers," SAIL Chairman C S Verma said in a letter to the shareholders.

The state-owned steel maker is in the midst of expanding its crude steel production capacity to 21.40 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) from 12.84 mtpa now with Rs 72,000 crore investment. On top of this, it plans to invest Rs 131,000 crore to raise capacity from 21.4 mtpa to 45 mtpa.

"The growth plan, besides targeting higher production, also addresses the need for eliminating technological obsolesence, achieving energy savings, enriching product-mix, reducing pollution, developing mines, introducing customer centric processes and developing matching infrastructure facilities," it said.

SAIL has been meeting its investment needs mainly through internal generations and as a result, its debt-equity ratio has gone down to 0.41:1, as on March 2012.

"To maintain its current dominance in the doemstic market and to meet future cahllenges, SAIL is working on a long-term strategic plan "Vision 2020", which will steer the comoany towards meeting its objectives of achieving profitability through organic and inorganic growth," Verma said.

The market is becoming increasingly competitive making it imperative for SAIL to make determined efforts to bring about substantial improvement in production, technoeconomic parameter and profitability, he added.

No comments:

Post a Comment